On day like these
I see the sun is out and my laces are undone
toddlers on mobiles
they know where the game is at

On day like these
I see older couples on benches
sliding palms over each other’s thighs
the comforting touch

On day like these
I see weeds refusing to be judged
no matter how hard
they’re pulled at the roots

On day like these
I see birds ignoring pecking orders
And marching to the front of queues demanding
And winning acceptance of their aspirations

On day like these
I see queues at food banks
fighting back the tears and blows of austerity
an austerity that never starts at the top

I see celebrity presidents without fear,
on fake news
boasting the size of their [nucleur] buttons
warplanes, gunships and drones,

ready in the wing for more strikes against
orphaned refuge babies
hoping somewhen, somehow
someone will love them again.

On day like these
ever resilient scientists develop
a new polymer protective covering
as the ozone layer disappears…

I see optimism and hope
melting
like icecaps into the sea

On day like these
my shoelaces are still undone.

Open yourself to the clearing,
you may retire to receding
points of suspension and yet…
The perfect enclosure beyond
the hot summer’s cauldron

The dark forest mushrooms
The undertow of our longings
And yet there will always be
calm, sky-bearing lake

Is this the last declaration of love or
the heart’s final stillness?

There is so much to remember and what of it would matter

to a silent universe devoid of humans or sentient beings?

All the poetry, all the literature what is it for?

The universe is mute to our desires our ambitions

Just as all we amounts to nought in the universe

with each passing moment of our lives.

 

Every generation forgets and the next generation has to learn again

Teenagers are hard wired to ignore their parent advice

so why do we bother, why do we bother with social order,

with moral relativism or absolutism?

 

Their generation will ask if such a thing as good or evil in the universe exists?

What is the hunger in human being that there even be a God?

Why is he good, why do the right thing? Who will impose order when God is dead?

The minimally educated, the war dis-empowered, drunken proletariat

manipulated by riches of man’s regress, greed and ambition

that make us fight against that which will benefit all men.

 

As moral relativism collapses, moral absolutism collapses too

and chaos takes its place,

Resist…. children, resist: question thoroughly

deduce logically, induce imaginatively and compassionately.

When babies cry they cry for all of us

all of us burdened by this spiritual dis-ease

a disease ignored and replaced by the desperate attempt

to find the masses and to fit in – no matter the cost.

 

Yet we rue so sadly, we crave praise, and cover up blame,

all the time looking away from our rights and responsibilities

for personal freedoms, handling over our hard won privacy

to social media, its algorithms of money and the mind

for big brother who still keeps the watchful eye on us.

 

We settle for this psychological detention until the only choice left to us

is nothing more than competing brands in the supermarket isle

which are nothing more than warehouses of compliance

where we exchange consumer rights for citizen rights

We remain the drunken proletariats unable to rise up.

 

 

 

 

Buddha tree
Tilopa tree
zen tree
tantric tree
Kali’s tree

trees of passion
regenerative
language tree
speaking names
telling stories
histories

transformations
depthless tree
deathless tree
tree of comrades
of airs we breathe

dancing on water
cupping clouds
emptiness in form
form in emptiness

unpruned
untameable
immortal tree
overarching
human rainbows

come near
see them blossoming!

blossoming now!

Tree of dreams
and visitations
leaved with hair
of fallen heroes

snake wreathed
giant guarded
threaded with voices
and children’s laughter

spread-eagled
against the morning
a scented trellis
spanning noon

blue crowned
tree of earth
water fire
of air of airs

light ship
dusky barge
sailing on
wind seasoned

around year ends
and back again
clay moored

soil harboured tree
prow lapped
by heaven’s tides
sun cradle

moon basket
cloud blanketed
cask of stars
rocking meteors

shaking planets
ploughing galaxies
on long oars
world hammering

sky raking
word breaking
rocksplitting tree
bone-cracking

wrist of boughs
tower of strength
pivot fulcrum
axial roof tree

ever turning
clawed through crust
on cliff and crag
pointed dactyl

spark igniting
flame hurling
quill clutched
in a stone fist
illuminating

day’s page
in green and gold leaf
manuscript
chiselling plaques

in night’s crypt
with serifs inked
kindling speech
of origins

to sing darkness’s
molten core
of ice moss and coal.

Tree of life
planted in my core
spreading growing
many branched

tree of songs
flame tree
rooted in life
breath blown

bone fibred body
elemental
tree in a seed
full throated

thousand tongued
thick skinned
creaking tree
enduring thunder

wind eroded
snow bound
under storm clouds
budding slow

through despair
thrusting hopes
of high skies
cirrus strewn

milky ways
and birds returning
wakening sleep laden
circled in memories

close grained
springwood
and summerwood.

Tree of madness
tree of angst
set with thorns
sweating blood

pain tree though
evergreen
showering ghosts
shedding loss

Overshadowed tree
insect gnawed
rot infected
lightning blasted

around whose roots
the serpent coils
around whose branches
flits the white bird

buried in heaven
to flower through veins
arteries nerves
capillary tree

in infinite skies
descending up
and ascending down
rod of aeons

on the high mountain
nurturing
moss and lichen
mould gathering
mushrooms

where the spider weaves
and the rocks nest
and the bat flitters
and the kestrel waits.